[geeks] WRT54G/OpenWRT help?

[Phil Stracchino]

OK.  background:  I have a WRT54G series 2, which I wanted to configure
to operate just as a WAP.  The existing firmware doesn't allow this, so
I tried installing OpenWRT.

The various CLI options for installing OpenWRT from Win2K didn't work.
Before you ask, the reason I was trying to do a CLI/TFTP install from
win2K is because my win2K box is the only one handy right now that has a
second NIC I wasn't using.  My firewall, yama (an Ultra5) has three
NICs, but one of those three, xl0, is already connected to the Westell
DSL bridge.  The Westell wants to be 192.168.1.1, and cannot be
configured otherwise.  The Linksys wants to be 192.168.1.1 at firmware
boot, but CAN be configured otherwise ... once you get into it.  So, I
couldn't use yama's extra interface to configure it -- even though it is
scheduled to end up attached to that third interface.  Thus, the Win2K box.

So anyway, having failed byt CLI/TFTP routes, i went ahead and installed
OpenWRT via the web firmware update interface.  Which worked, and the
Linksys happily booted into OpenWRT, and I could get into the admin
interface and everything.  Right up until the point where I tried to
reconfigure it to reside at 10.24.33.2, its planned address on that
other interface.  At which point it not only stopped responding at any
known address whatsoever on any of its Ethernet ports, but stopped
offering a DHCP address on any of them.  "Fuck," I thought, "it's
bricked."  I tried talking to the #openWRTchannel on freenode.net, and,
well ....  let's be diplomatic and just say that they weren't helpful.

Fuck, no, I'm not letting'em off easy:  they were too busy being snarky
and condescending and showing off their |ber-l33tness to be helpful.


Pause story until tonight, when just out of suspicion, I try plugging
one of the ports into the open interface on Yama, and another into the
open interface in vorlon (the win2k box).  Bingo, vorlon's second
interface gets a DHCP address assigned from yama.  The WRT54G's switch
is working and routing.  It's not TOTALLY bricked; it's just sulking.
Even if all I can do is get it into boot-wait mode and fire off another
firmware upload to it via TFTP, that ought to get me off the ground to
where I can configure it again.


Anyone - preferably with OpenWRT experience - got any suggestions for
getting the thing talking again and/or finding out what it thinks its IP
address is?  If I can pass traffic THROUGH it, there ought to be some
way to get traffic TO it.


Failing that, does anyone know how to get the cover of a WRT54G open to
access the internal serial port that I'm given to understand is there?
And has anyone ever built the buffered serial cable necessary to talk to
it via that route (it's a 3.3v serial port)?


-- 
 Phil Stracchino       phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net
    Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker
 Mobile: 603-216-7037         Landline: 603-886-3518